Samara's friend
by WWT
Summary: Beth finds the tape. Samara's only friend comes from the grave to stop Samara's evil-doing. Beth must take her where she needs to go in order to stop the madness. AN: I suck at horror, but I saw this in my head, so I had to put it down on...um, here?
1. Chapter 1: curious cat

AN: I think we've established that I'm a bit of a Pauley perrette fan. I do hope that my future gore details will make up for the shitty representation of horror. Again, my apologies...

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"Hey... this must be that tape that friend of his didn't want me to see..." Beth picked up the tape from the video table. She was packing up the loft. She couldn't get over how his face had looked, shriveled as if it had been in water for ages. She had found him in his favorite chair, staring at the TV, which had water leading to it... or from it. She looked back at the tape in her hand. She shouldn't; what if it was like, a personal porno. As soon as she had come in, that woman had seemed eager to leave. _Old girlfriend, maybe? _

Curiosity was getting to her. She walked to the television set and stuck it in the VCR. She had an ominous feeling, but pushed it away as a feeling of loss, that she was getting it because she was in a dead friends's apartment, watching some stupid video. She pressed play. The screen was snowwy, so she hit it, thinking it was the old tv malfunctioning. The screen flickered and an onslaught of horrifying, gruesome images bombarded her.

"Lady... Lady, you gonna get that?" The mover said, picking up the box. No responce. He put the package down and walked to her. "Lady? You alright?" he touched her shoulder and she jumped and grabbed his wrist. She looked up at him and let out her breath. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Sorry..." The portly mover nodded, scratched his balding head, and went back to his boxes.

"...Nutcase..." He sighed, thinking she couldn't hear him. Beth hopped to her feet and got to the phone just as it stopped ringing. She was about to go back to work when she saw a little red blinking light on the reciever. _You have one message_. She looked at the mover. As soon as he was down the elevator, she pressed the button. A little girl spoke:

"Seven days." she dropped the phone. It broke, the battery pack coming loose from the rest. She had heard of this in highschool. You watch the movie, you get a call, then you die, seven days later. _I thought it was just a rumor... _she thought.

They say curiosity killed the cat. She had been curious. Now she was going to die... in 7 days.


	2. chapter 2: Branded like a horse

Beth had been trying to find the mystery woman for days now. She had at least remembered her name; Rachel Keller. Her quest, however, hadn't turned up much. Her only lead were pictures of a group of kids at a cabin, Rachel in an apartment, and Noah; all had a warped effect, only to the faces. How this was possible, she couldn't figure out; maybe on the digital pictures, but on the polaroids, it was impossible and she could think of no chemical that would create this specific effect.

She sat back down on the couch of the cabin in the first photo. She had come in hopes of a lead, but once again, she was seeming to be a failure. She drew into herself, wrapping her arms around her legs. She looked curiously at the poorly boarded up floor. _I could have done a better job at it for God's sakes. _She only had four days left to figure this mess out.

_What the hell am I doing here?_ She thought to her self as she poured herself a steaming mug of coffee. She heard a rustling noise from behind her. _It can't be... I have three days left... _Beth turned slowly. The world seemed to be at a stand still. There, in the corner of the small kitchenette, was a small black figure. Her mug crashed to the floor, smashing into little bits and further staining the figure's linens. For a second, she thought it was the girl from the tape, but after a few moments of fearful silence, she realized that the child wasn't the malevolent spirit possesing the tape.

The colors were wrong, and as it... she... raised her head, Beth could see that the facial structure was completely different from that of the hellion. The girl's dark brown hair was dry and caked with mud, but dry, unlike the demon-girl's. It was frizzy, too and had a few, crinkly leaves snagged in it. Her skin was as white as chalk, like porcelain, with a slight greenish tinge. She wore a black sundress, also caked with mud and moss. She hid her left arm behind her as she huddled against the wall.

"I finally found you." She whispered in a surreal voice that seemed younger than her physical age. She apeared to be fourteen or fifteen but her voice seemed to be that of a child nine or younger, maybe ten. Her sunken cheeks and sallow pallor made her seem all the more ghostly, yet, oddly, Beth wasn't scared. She inched towards the young maiden, touching her briefly, and quickly snatching her hand back as she came to the realization that she was real.

"You said you found me..."

"I had to find the tape. The original." Beth huddled in the middle of the floor, a few feet away from the girl.

"Who are you?"

"Claudia. Claudia DeLupe`. I used to know her."

"You mean..."

"Samara, the girl on the tape." for the first time, the girl brought her arm out from behind her. Beth gasped as she saw a series of swirling, twisting scars, winding up much of the length of her forearm. Claudia caught her staring. "She did it..."

"Wh- wha-"

"Why? Let me show you." the girl held out her hand. Beth was unsure to do, and they were running out of time for introductions. She grabbed Beth's arm, hard, but not enough to bruise. There was a great flash, and Beth saw flickering images in black and white, like old home movies. It reminded her if the video, only less malicious. There were conflicting images, reading books to each other and combing each others' hair. Samara glaring while Claudia pet the horses, a crutch under one arm_. How she hated those horses..._ Samara pushing her down in the dirt, and bossing her around. Then, the flashing, churning medley of dizying images slowed and a scene unfolded before her. _Two boys pressed cut their fingers and pressed them together. _

_"See, now we're blood brothers! Now we'll never be apart!" Samara peered from the trees with intrest at the ritual. I want to be with Claudia forever. then Samara was behind the barn, poking at a fire. She thought about the boy's ritual, they had identical cuts on their fingers. She wanted to join herself somehow, to Claudia. He spotted a branding iron leaning against the barn. The idea sparked in her head. She knew how she could join them._

_She fetched some wire and with some work, she fashioned a pattern of windy twists and intricate swirls. She attached it to the branding iron, placed it on the fire to heat up, and went to get Caudia. She was going to brand her like a horse or steer and make her her property._

_"Where are we going?" Claudia's voice seemed far off, although Beth could see her clearly. _

_"We're going to do a ritual like those boys I told you about. A ritual all our own." Samara led her by the hand. Claudia weakly walking behind her. She looked up at the smoke rising from the fire, confused. Beth watched, helpless to get away from the visions of Claudia's past. Claudia now saw the bright red metal, roasting over the fire. She tried to escape, but it was futile; Samara had a death grip on her arm, instantly rendering blue-violet bruises on her pale skin. She was dragged fireside and shoved down on the ground. Samara forced the hot wire design onto her left arm. Beth could almost feel the searing heat of the brand on her own arm. Samara did the same to her own left foot in a similar fashion, except she didn't do so much as wince. _

_"See? Now we're connected." Samara grinned, not evily. Tears slid down Claudia's ashen face as she peered up helplessly at the one she'd called her friend._

"And that was her way of saying she cared..." Claudia folded in on herself again. She looked like an over-grown version of her younger self. "I hated her for it, secretly. But I was all she had, so I stayed. There's a few ways to keep her at bay, but only one to kill her forever. You need to find the one who copied the tape first."

"Copied? you mean there's more?" Beth whined.

"Yes, copying the tape and showing it to someone else and having them copy it, and so on, is one way you can rid yourself of the curse. Currently, Samara is locked in the well underneath this cabin, the same well you see at the end of the tape. You must find the one who copied it first and find out the whole story, she will know. You must release Samara again and we must push her off the cliff where the woman on the tape jumps. It is the only way to rid the world of her evil soul." Beth knew immediately whom she was talking about. She'd been trying to track her for three days now.


End file.
